What do the exclamation marks in Rails i18N translation yml file mean?

Question

I'm using Rails i18n to localize my website.

In the translation yml file, I see

time:
    am: am
    formats:
      default: ! '%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z'
      long: ! '%d %B, %Y %H:%M'
      short: ! '%d %b %H:%M'
    pm: pm

What does the exclamation mark mean? How is it different if you take away the exclamation mark?

Thanks

Did you _try_ removing them to see if you could notice any difference? What happened to the adventuring spirit? — TheZ, Jul 06 '12 at 15:36
See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9664113/what-does-a-single-exclamation-mark-do-in-yaml — Stefan, Jul 06 '12 at 15:43
I've read the link posted by @Stefan but I'm still don't understand how this applies to Rails. — Andy Waite, May 31 '13 at 09:07
See this answer : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9664113/what-does-a-single-exclamation-mark-do-in-yaml — tigrish, May 31 '13 at 09:26
@Stefan - If you're game to recap the solution as your own answer, I'll delete my answer. (See http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/90263/unanswered-question-answered-in-comments for elaboration of why this is helpful.) Thanks! — DreadPirateShawn, Oct 09 '13 at 16:25

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 06 '14 at 00:13

9

% is a special character in YAML. Single exclamation mark avoids it to be parsed as a special character and passes it as a String.

answered Apr 06 '14 at 00:13

kuboon

2

would it be equivalent to wrap the entire string in quotation marks instead of using the single exclamation mark in front? – Magne Feb 05 '15 at 22:10

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

2

Copying the answer from the comments in order to remove this question from the "Unanswered" filter:

See What does a single exclamation mark do in YAML?

~ link per Stefan, linked question answered by Juan Mellado

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

answered Oct 09 '13 at 06:34

DreadPirateShawn

2 Answers2